CNBC Host Squawks Climate Denial in Twitter Meltdown

CNBC Host Squawks Climate Denial in Twitter Meltdown

Joe Kernen, co-host of CNBC’s Squawk Box, lashed out on Twitter this month at concerned CNBC viewers and individuals who called on him to accurately report the facts about the economic risks of climate change. Kernen’s comments are indicative of a larger climate coverage problem at CNBC.

Subsequently, Forecast the Facts and Environmental Action launched a petition targeting CNBC’s CEO and President Mark Hoffman demanding that he “tell Joe Kernen and [CNBC’s] other on-air personalities and guests to stop denying climate science and start reporting the facts on the economic risks of fossil-fueled climate change.”

The petition has already gathered over 25,000 signatures since its launch, and helped spur on Kernen’s tweets.

Just recently, the network has seen their viewer ratings falling to their lowest levels since 1994 in key demographics. And just last week, Squawk Box hosts had an embarrassing run-in with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who schooled them on the history of Glass-Stegall.

Previous Comments

Joe is still living in the magic of the 1980s- like so many boomers of the Reagan era- he just cannot fathom a threat to his vision of total unbridled captitalism - and that climate change will undo his fantasies is too much for him to understand.

Times were different back then. I believe that a lot of people (including Carter) were saying that 'we can't continue to live like this'.

So I think there is a tendancy for older folks to just sort of brush this all aside as the usual malcontents and hippies.

Which of course, its not. We're talking about peer reviewed science, and measurements. (I bet the usual malcontents are carrying the flag though.)

I wonder if Joe Kernan understand just how long an oil refinery would run if it was constructed by uneducated bloggers and high school graduates like Anthony Watts. We design and run this stuff with peer reviewed science for a reason. In fact its illegal (in Canada) not too. Engineers are authorized by law to apply science (not bloggers) to solve problems.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

Bjorn Lomborg’s latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal resurrects repeatedly demolished distortions of fact to downplay the real and increasingly documented threats of climate change. His trademark tactic is to acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, only to then dismiss the solutions—reducing emissions and promoting...